She sees both—and she understands in a way that makes my chest tighten.
That look….
I’d rather she screamed.
Understanding is a threat.
Understanding is intimacy wearing a different face.
And from Vivian, it feels like a hand around my throat.
I turn around and leave the room.
Chapter 14 – Vivian
“Heiress Heroine Saves Rusnak Empire.”
I stare at the headline Sienna sent me, the words loud even in the silence of my room. My thumb scrolls before my brain fully catches up. There it is—my face plastered beneath a golden filter, eyes wide, lips parted, the media’s favorite new fantasy:
Vivian Laurent: The Knight. The Savior. The Wife Who Stood Tall Beside Her Husband.
If only they knew.
My stomach twists as I swipe to the next notification.
More articles.
More headlines.
More angles of my body hitting the ground as Dimitri shoved me out of the line of fire.
People online are worshipping him for protecting me.
People online are worshipping me for standing beside him.
Nobody understands what really happened.
Nobody understands what I felt.
The humiliation.
The terror.
The whiplash of a man who spent hours treating me like a burden—then used his own body to shield mine.
How do you reconcile that? How do you breathe around that?
I sigh, drop my phone onto the bed, and let myself collapse backward beside it. The ceiling is plain, white, still. Unlike my mind.
Where’s Dimitri?
Has he seen the news?
Does he care?
Or is this what he wanted all along—another headline to bury the truth?
I don’t know the last time we slept in the same room. I don’t know the last time he touched me without anger in his bones.
